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As the U.S. grapples with other pertinent issues such as wage stagnation, healthcare funding, and education, the billions that were spent on the Afghanistan War has detracted from governmental investment in other vital areas.

What started in 2009 as a group of twenty-five has expanded to over 6,000 Muslim clergy who are now training one another to preach and teach about the importance of the dignity and empowerment of women and girls within Islam.

The governments of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have for many years funded anti-Shia political and military movements in the Middle East without any substantial resistance from the international community.

Losing Our Way is a book that will resonate with many thoughtful Americans who feel, like the author, that America has lost her way in this last half-century. That would be most Americans, actually: Two-thirds of the American public tell pollsters they feel the country is on "the wrong track."

The natural ability of a horse to accept, without judgment, anyone, including a soldier who had seen or done horrific things and, by so doing, express compassion and benevolent acknowledgement was another extraordinary gift that horses were capable of giving to humans.

Ever since the American Revolutionary War, a startling statistic has emerged: the U.S. has not lost a single conventional war, but not won even a single guerrilla war. What can be learned from this experience?

While Afghanistan can stand out with its beautiful landscapes and certain historical events such as defeating the invading USSR, for some time now it has had the dubious distinction of being by far the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material of heroin.

Author Sardar: From Afghanistan’s Golden Age to Carnage, Return to Kabul: An Afghan American's Odyssey in Afghanistan (September 2015) and Kandahar: Provincial Handbook. Former diplomat served in Afghanistan.

Yesterday as I walked through the freshly cut green grass and weaved my way through the rows of graves at Arlington National Cemetery to pay respects to my valiant warrior, I couldn't quite figure out why I was more emotional than normal.

I began work on the above illustration in 1999 through the advice of my then agent. It was all over the news at the time, that an immigrant family had named their newborn "America" in hopes of not being deported.

Memorial Day is, by federal law, a day of prayer for permanent peace. But is it possible to honestly pray for peace while our country is far and away number one in the world in waging war, military presence, military spending and the sale of weapons around the world?

People who don't know me well often ask what sort of celebrating I'll be doing over the Memorial Day holiday. I used to be like most of America, planning a barbecue or a weekend laughing at the lake with little or no thought about what the holiday really meant -¬ it was totally valued time off.

I may not be a Muslim, but I know that calls for murder of civilians are not Islamic. For more than 10 years I lived and worked as a reporter in a dozen Islamic countries... Almost everywhere I found a kind and generous welcome.

In a sense, Memorial Day weekend should usher this country into the griever's world: The every day reality of grief. Memorial Day should (or could) be a time when the whole nation bows its collective head to its collective heart, and says: Ow. Ow. OW. This hurts.